Ocula Conversation Bani Abidi: ‘What you see in my films is what I know’ A group of voices accompanies me in the exhibition. They are singing words I cannot comprehend, yet the warm tunes are familiar: folk songs, love songs, songs of longing. There are letters, too. They speak of the quotidian details of a soldier's life: the hardness of the war, sending money to the family, and longing for familiar landscapes, food,...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
Ocula Insight | Video Mark Bradford’s Call for Unity at Shanghai’s Long Museum 16 August 2019 Mark Bradford walks through Mark Bradford: Los Angeles Mark Bradford: Los Angeles at the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai (27 July–13 October 2019) is the artist's largest solo exhibition to date in China. In this video for Ocula, Bradford and Diana Nawi, curator of the show, walk through selected works that convey the artist's concerns with...
Ocula Insight Colin McCahon's Gate III (1970) has graced the walls of Victoria University of Wellington since 1972. Thousands of students and staff have walked past it over these years, and many remember their first encounter with the towering words 'I AM' that dominate its composition.Gate III was commissioned for the exhibition Ten Big Paintings at Auckland...
Ocula Photolog Sydney Contemporary 2018 14 September 2018 'With a thriving contemporary art scene, Sydney is a dynamic cultural destination with an international reputation for presenting the very best in visual art through its leading commercial galleries, public institutions, private museums, festivals and Biennale. Defined by the vibrancy of its host city, Sydney Contemporary provides collectors,...
Ocula Report Independent Growth: Art Dubai 2018 31 Mar 2018 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula It is far too easy to dismiss art fairs, if not the entire commercial art market. By the same token, it is easy to be turned off by Dubai, the most glitzy and commercial of the UAE's emirates. It might take a little longer to appreciate how an art fair staged in a free port like this could benefit artistic production and development—an...
Ocula Photolog Art Dubai 2018 26 March 2018 'The 2018 edition of the fair presents an intimate and diverse line-up of 105 galleries from 48 countries, making this year's edition the fair's largest and most globally diverse to date. Alongside 77 returning galleries, the fair welcomes 28 first-time exhibitors from around the world.' –Art Dubai (21–24 March 2018).
Ocula Report All in one place: Art Dubai 2017 24 Mar 2017 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula This year's edition of Art Dubai (15–18 March 2017)—the most global to date with 94 galleries from 43 countries—was a game changer. At least, that's what it felt like in the Abraaj Group lounge on Thursday night, when top Abraaj Group executives sang Don McLean's 'American Pie' on a small stage with resident Art Dubai enigma, Barry, on...
Ocula Conversation Peter Atkins Artist, Australia Australian artist Peter Atkins was one of 7 artists invited to create new site-specific public art works for the forthcoming Christchurch Biennial, SCAPE8: New Intimacies, curated by Rob Garrett.An important figure in Australian contemporary art, Peter Atkins has exhibited extensively both in Australia and internationally and is...
Ocula Conversation Barry Keldoulis Director, Melbourne Art Fair Barry Keldoulis has more than three decades experience in the world of contemporary art. Keldoulis started his career in New York where he worked as private secretary and chief of staff for Henry Geldzahler, Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the City of New York, and the first curator of 20th century art at the Metropolitan Museum of...
Ocula Conversation Martin Browne Founder, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney Following a very early foray into diplomacy and trading futures, Martin Browne returned to the business of art and now some twenty-five plus years later he runs the very successful and well respected Sydney gallery, Martin Browne Contemporary. In The Art Life’s inaugural list of the fifty most powerful people in the Australian art...
